Joshua (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible)

Hinlicky, Paul R., Reno, R. R., Jenson, Robert, Wilken, Robert, Radner, Ephraim, Root, Michael, Sumner, George

• Editorial: Brazos Press
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781493431137
• Categoría: Théologie et religion
• Categoría: Théologie chrétienne

Paul Hinlicky, a leading systematic theologian widely respected for his contributions in contemporary dogmatics, offers a theological reading of Joshua in this addition to the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible series. Hinlicky compares and contrasts the politics of purity and the politics of redemption in an innovative and illuminating way and locates the book of Joshua in the postexilic genesis of apocalyptic theology. As with other series volumes, this commentary is designed to serve the church, providing a rich resource for preachers, teachers, students, and study groups.

Part 1: YHWH Usurps the Usurpers of the Earth (Joshua 1–12)

YHWH Commissions Joshua to Succeed Moses
1:1–9

YHWH speaks, announcing the death of Moses and thus the termination of his service. “Now therefore”—the commissioning of Joshua arises as a consequence of the departure of Moses from the scene. The character for whom the book of Joshua is named is thus introduced to the reader by YHWH who calls him to follow Moses in his service. Readers of the canonical book of Joshua will already know about the death of Moses from the conclusion of the preceding book, Deuteronomy, as they will also know of Moses’s service from Deuteronomy as well as from the books preceding it—namely, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. They will also know from these sources something of Joshua the son of Nun, and relevant details from these sources will be called to mind throughout canonical Joshua.

We are to see in YHWH’s words in what kind of relationship Joshua stands to Moses, as successor to predecessor, and hence what role Joshua can be expected to play in what follows. The Hebrew ‘ebed yhwh (slave/servant of YHWH) is a title at the outset reserved for Moses alone, while another word is used to characterize Joshua’s previous ministering to Moses. The priority of Moses in the Moses-Joshua relationship is thus indicated. But what kind of priority is this? What Joshua goes on to do is in some sense derivative of the initiation accomplished by Moses in the exodus, the wilderness wanderings, the deliverance of Torah at Sinai and the covenant-making there, and even victory in battle as Israel approached the promised land. But equally Joshua will somehow complete what Moses has begun. Thus by the end of the book, Joshua too will be awarded the title of “servant of YHWH” (24:29). While some commentators see this Joshua-in-training to prefigure Josiah the king of Judah, associated with the discovery of the book of Deuteronomy and the reform of worship,1 it is better, as our commentary will show, to see the ministry of Joshua in priestly terms.2

Origen reviews this background material extensively at the outset of his Homilies with a view to explaining how it is that Joshua succeeded Moses. He sees that it was not by continuing Moses’s work as lawgiver since his instruction has become now a settled deposit of faith recorded in “the book of the law.” Rather, Origen discovers in the background material of the Pentateuch the warrior whom Moses himself had already commissioned to accomplish the promises of YHWH on behalf of Israel. Moreover, for Origen, it is in this role as warrior that Joshua figures forward “Jesus, my Lord and Savior, [as it is he who now] assumed the leadership.”3 This is how Origen understands the priority of Moses and distinguishes the law from the gospel, the old covenant from the new, letter from spirit. The church fathers generally embraced this explanation of the typology. For example, Lactantius: “For that Jesus [Joshua] was a figure of Christ. Although he was first called Hoshea, Moses, foreseeing the future, ordered him to be called Joshua (or Jesus), so that, since he was selected leader of the soldiery against Amalek who was attacking the children of Israel, he might overcome the adversary through the figure of his name and lead the people into the land of promise. And for this reason also he succeeded Moses, to show that the new law given through Jesus Christ succeeded the old law which was given through Moses.”4 But both Origen and Lactantius overstate the difference between law and gospel by treating it as a supersession, when in fact, as we shall see, what is involved is a tension within the Torah between its indicatives and its imperatives.

For the sixteenth-century reformer Calvin, by contrast, the human and historical figure of Joshua stands to Moses as obedience stands to faith or as imperative stands to indicative. The career of Joshua is presented to illustrate

the property of faith to animate us to strenuous exertion, in the same way as unbelief manifests itself by cowardice or cessation of effort . . . [so that] we may infer from this passage, that bare promises are not sufficiently energetic without the additional stimulus of exhortation. For if Joshua, who was always remarkable for alacrity, required to be incited to the performance of duty, how much more necessary must it be that we who labor under so much sluggishness should be spurred forward. . . . The only way in which we can become truly invincible is by striving to yield a faithful obedience to God.5

Here, by contrast to Origen and Lactantius, the difference between law and gospel is understated, and the directness of YHWH’s speech to Joshua, as direct as YHWH ever spoke to Moses, weighs in favor of Origen rather than Calvin: “For if we do not understand how Moses dies, we shall not be able to understand how Jesus reigns.”6 Thus from the outset we see that knowing the distinction between the law and the gospel is no easy or self-evident matter. We shall see that the priority of Moses to Joshua is not one of dignity but of mission, which is why the warrior Joshua can figure the messianic Savior to come who resolves the tension internal to the law between its indicative and its imperative by his own performance of the obedience of faith on behalf of those who have failed to keep the covenant.

The mission Joshua is to take up is consequential indeed: at YHWH’s command Joshua is to lead this particular people, Israel, encamped at Shittim on the eastern side of the Jordan River, across the Jordan into this particular land of Canaan that YHWH is giving to them in fulfillment of the promise he made to their ancient ancestors. Israel is a “people,” a particular people whose name contains the word “God” (El), a particular people chosen by God to strive with God until blessing is won, if we hearken back to the episode in Gen. 32. There the ancestor Jacob night-wrestled with God at the river Jabbok until blessing was bestowed and so received this new name, Israel, meaning one who “strives with God.” The blessing in question is the grant of land now at last about to be realized after many detours and long wanderings.

Such word from YHWH thus initiates the action about to take place and indeed throughout the book. The pattern of divine word–faith–obedience repeats throughout the narrative; thus the imperative that directs the behavior of Joshua and Israel following is firmly, indeed exclusively and repeatedly, grounded in the indicative of YHWH’s word telling what he is about to do on Israel’s behalf.7 Wyschogrod states emphatically, “Covenant, as moral demand, does not arise in a vacuum. It arises in the context of man’s gratitude to God when God has mercifully saved him from some great danger. Receptivity to the command is therefore rooted in gratitude for salvation, for bringing into being (Adam), for saving from nonbeing (Noah) and bondage (children of Israel).”8 Promise and faith are correlative just as faith that receives—passively and without merit—the divine promise becomes active as obedience. As YHWH is the one who brought Israel out of Egypt, the house of bondage, just so Israel is to have no other gods in place of YHWH, lest Israel, failing to hear YHWH and thus to follow YHWH, fall back into bondage. In YHWH’s holy zeal to reign over liberated Israel on the soil of liberated Canaan, YHWH is a “jealous God” (Josh. 24:19) who will not overlook infidelities, for they are lethal. Divine and holy love is against what is against love. The love of YHWH is thus militant. By the same token, the sin of infidelity is the unforgivable sin. It is no venial sin within the covenanted relationship that may be repented, atoned, and thus forgiven. It is mortal sin that violates to the point of destruction the covenant relationship itself. Such sin is real and not fictitious destruction. Sin destroys. Infidelity is lethal.

The striking expression about gaining the land wherever Joshua’s feet tread on the soil foreshadows the lightning campaign that Israel under Joshua will conduct, traversing the land north, south, east, and west. The meaning is not so much that Israel will actually take possession of the land to this extent in the lifetime of historical Joshua as that Israel will mark claim.9 The boundaries actually specified in 1:4 in fact extravagantly surpass the territory on which Joshua and Israel will tread in the ...